


paint a vulgar picture

by deerie



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Introspection, M/M, POV Peter Hale, Photography
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-15
Updated: 2013-05-15
Packaged: 2017-12-12 00:08:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/804843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deerie/pseuds/deerie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Peter buys the camera on a whim. His decision is completely impulsive, based on a rush of nostalgia that he can’t quite tamp down, but it’s a cheap little digital camera so he doesn’t see the harm.</i> Or, how much of a creep is Peter Hale? The answer is 'the biggest.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	paint a vulgar picture

**Author's Note:**

> The relationships never come to fruition - it's entirely one-sided on Peter's part if mentioned in great detail at all, and just serves as showing that we should never trust Peter Hale, ever, the end. 
> 
> I felt so skeevy after I finished writing this. It's also based from this picture that Ian Bohen [took](http://teenwolf.tumblr.com/post/40868961198/photo-credit). I pretty much started this piece after that picture came out and then shelved it until I finished it today. 
> 
> So, I guess I hope you enjoy, or something?
> 
> Oh, hey, I forgot to mention that the title comes from a song by The Smiths of the same name.

Peter buys the camera on a whim. His decision is completely impulsive, based on a rush of nostalgia that he can’t quite tamp down, but it’s a cheap little digital camera so he doesn’t see the harm.

Harm - ha. 

Nostalgia makes him want things he has to do without. Peter wants the pack he had before the fire, before Kate Argent took it all away by luring his naive puppy of a nephew away and setting fire to their home. Peter thinks the nostalgia makes him dangerous, so he holds it close in his chest and lets it fester and rot near the blackened spot where his heart should be. 

All he tastes anymore are ashes, thick in his throat, choking - 

He craves normalcy, he tells himself. 

He buys a camera.

*

Peter’s use of the camera starts out in the most innocuous way. He justifies it by documenting things for the Hale bestiary.

He takes pictures of the different types of wolfsbane they encounter - quick but steady shots of the petals on delicate stalks, whites and roses and purple blues. Peter can appreciate their deception. 

He photographs the bodies of the harpies that attack months after they defeat the alpha pack, feathers slick and twisted with brackish blood, repugnant faces somehow softer in death, wicked claws.

One by one, the bestiary begins to fill with pictures of the pack’s victories - the single shiny eye left over from a golem; the cracked head of a kappa that darling, clever Stiles outwitted with a bow from the waist; the jeweled belly scale from a naga much too far from home - and the pack’s losses. 

He takes pictures of the effects of a spell cast on Isaac, but Peter can’t secure that clinical indifference he extended to the battle tokens. Isaac reminds him too much of a young cousin caught in flames (sometimes Peter wonders if Derek chose Isaac for that same reason, because Isaac has the same shaped eyes as James, because they have the same long limbs, the same curved smile) and Peter feels something stir deep beneath his ribs. The spell forces the change in Isaac, forces claws to spring unbidden, teeth to gnash unwillingly, causes loss of the control that Isaac so carefully maintains. 

Restraining Isaac down in the basement takes both Derek and Boyd’s strength. They work quickly to chain him down and toe the line between restraint and further trauma. Isaac howls and claws and fat tears crawl down his face. 

Boyd leaves the room with flesh torn from the apple of his cheek. He climbs the stairs slowly, leaves time for the snatch of pale fatty pink flesh to knit back together and smooth dark skin to appear unblemished. Derek slants a stare toward Peter’s camera, but doesn’t say anything. After a moment, he follows Boyd and leaves Peter alone in the basement with Isaac. 

Peter stays just out of reach, takes pictures of the way Isaac rages through the night. In the morning, when the spell wears off and Isaac finally falls asleep, Peter takes a picture of his face and catches the dry salt tracks of tears in the flash. 

Peter untangles the chains, careful not to jostle Isaac, and flees.

*

Peter thinks the nostalgia makes him dangerous, but Peter’s been wrong before.

*

Stiles has a mean streak a mile wide and Peter thinks it must be luck that Stiles chooses to align himself with Derek so often these days. Scott may be the heart of his little pack of misfits, but Stiles oozes pragmatism, the practicality that comes with making the decisions that will stick.

Stiles eyes the camera - and Peter - with derision he doesn’t even attempt to hide. Peter depresses the button on the camera just as Stiles bares his teeth and catches something wild in Stiles’ eyes. 

Peter knows Stiles would make a good wolf, but he’s still a magnificently hungry human. Peter entertains designs of having that hunger directed at himself but Peter lacks the alpha’s teeth, the power that backs the rage to maim and rend and tear, and he doesn’t want Stiles if he’s human. For all the bravado, Stiles would break much too easily under Peter’s claws and mouth and playthings are no fun if they fall apart at first touch, first fuck. 

Peter likes sustainability, and humans are much too frail - strong, yes, like Stiles and Lydia both prove, but even Peter’s plan to pull himself out of the grave was nearly too much for poor Lydia. Humans are footholds to push against to get what Peter wants, and Peter wants so _much_.

*

The pictures he manages to catch of Lydia are always of her on the fringes, flashes of her hair as she turns away, fear on the surface of her gaze but beneath it something much fiercer. There’s something raw in the way she holds herself, some scant scent of something dark and bitter that trails her and Peter thinks it must be the remnants and ribbons of love she held deep for Jackson. The boy is gone now, lost to her, and Peter thinks this is just - human love has its place and its power, but there is nothing human about what Peter did to Lydia, just death and dust and the ever present pulse - _thump a-thump_ \- of danger simmering below the surface.

If he had the chance, Peter would tear her limb from limb and take pictures of her blood between his fingers.

It’s just as well he doesn’t.

*

He pulls up the pictures on his laptop and finds a picture of Derek he’s sure he never meant to take.

Derek leans back, cast in shadow, and there’s something in his eyes that makes Peter ache in the worst way. Oh God, he thinks, he feels bad for his sorry nephew. The same nephew who led a huntress to their home, who let her trade what was between her thighs for secrets on how best to eradicate their family. 

What Derek did - unforgivable. What Peter’s done is also unforgivable, but Derek still tries to find ways to forgive him. The boy was always too soft, too malleable, and Peter thinks that will be what brings an end to the reign of Derek as alpha. 

He has the pictures developed, but Peter rips the photograph of Derek in half and watches as Stiles gathers the pieces and thinks that must be apt because Stiles cleans up all the messes, even ones so tragic as Derek Hale.

*

Peter smashes the camera. Normalcy - it’s an antiquated concept anyway, he thinks. It’s so much more fun to be bad, to keep them guessing. 


End file.
